Many small areas of hot steaming ground occur near the summit of Mt Melbourne, and small, almost undissected, basaltic cones and mounds are found on the flanks and in the crater of the volcano. All the recent volcanic landforms are composed of glassy trachyandesite. The presence of ash layers in ice-cliffs and nearby glaciers indicates that Mt Melbourne must have erupted within the last few thousand years, and the geomorphic evidence suggests a long period of activity before this.